Conventionally, vehicles have been operated by humans. More recent advances have focused on making vehicles operationally autonomous or at least semi-autonomous. The expectation is that safety can be increased by removing the element of human error, which is the primary cause of accidents. But current approaches are limited by the small and localized type of information available to the vehicle, such as line of sight, immediate road obstructions, misinterpretation of localized data (e.g., mistaking a pedestrian for a stationary object), or the like. Since autonomous vehicles must often make decisions having life-or-death implications to humans, such a limited amount of low-quality information presents a challenge, and is insufficient for a standard of safety that is acceptable to society and governments at large.
Indeed, for advanced autonomous vehicle technology to take root in the world, significant enhancements to safety must be achieved. While automated systems can provide reliable operation for some or most of the time, human intervention might be needed in the event of system failure, particularly adverse weather conditions, unexpected events, or other situations not anticipated by the conventional technology. For example, a human might be required to take control of the vehicle under peculiar situations within a certain period of time, such as 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or the like. Such requirements may be mandated by governments to ensure a certain level of system quality and safety. However, existing technology lacks the granular type of information needed to provide an alert under such conditions, and thus, it fails to achieve appropriate levels of safety.
In addition, conventional navigation technologies fail to provide sufficient granular navigable information for autonomous vehicles to truly operate with high levels of safety and performance. The situation on the road is often dynamic and frequently changes. Traffic jams can occur at various times of the day. Accidents can introduce an element of temporary chaos. Road obstructions can be dangerous. Roadways are inefficiently used. Some routes are taken by drivers when other routes would be better. Congestion, frustration, road rage, fuel inefficiencies, and the like, are the undesirable result.
Accordingly, a need remains for a dynamic routing intelligent vehicle enhancement system and related methods. A need also remains for a smart grid to improve the utility and capacity of existing roads. Embodiments of the invention address these and other limitations in the prior art.
The foregoing and other features of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.